The following is a memorandum from the business manager of a television station."Over the past year, our late-night news program has devoted increased time to national news and less time to weather and local news. During this period, most of the complaint

In order to stop losing viewers and profits, the business manager of a television station advises to restore the time devoted to weather and local news to its former levels. To buttress his conclusion, the manager says that most complaints are about the station's coverage of weather and local news. However, are these complaints about the quality or the quantity of such coverage? Would people be happy if the station simply restored its former late-night news program, or do they want something completely different? Another argument used by the manager is that local businesses have just canceled their advertising contracts with the station. Is there correlation or causation? Further evidence is needed to evaluate the manager's claims.

Even though limited, some time is still allocated to the coverage of weather and local news. If the author provided evidence that viewers found this time not long enough, the conclusion would be perfectly supported. However, quantity does not imply quality. If the viewers are discontent with the quality of the station's presentations, extending the coverage of weather and local news is not the right strategy.

Furthermore, the manager argues that by restoring the coverage to its former level will solve the problem. Nevertheless, suppose that the viewers are only interested by local news and weather. Then, what they really want is not the former level of coverage, but an even more sophisticated and complete coverage of their favourite meteorological and local topics.

Did the businesses cancel their contracts because the station lost viewers or were these two events a coincidence? Maybe the businesses are nearly bankrupt and have to cancel their contracts for some other extrinsic reason. Or there may be a third element in the story. Suppose, the country is in a recession. People feel apathy for television and news in general. Besides, they have less money for consumption. In this gloomy scenarion, people watch less TV and consume less. What happens? The station loses viewers, the businesses lose consumers. The businesses have no more money to pay for their advertisments and cancel their contracts. In order to establish his claim, the manager needs to provide some evidence that there is no recession in the country, and that local businesses have canceled advertising contracts with their station in order to sign similar contracts with the station's competitor who provides people with a wider coverage of weather and local news.

Without further evidence, the business manager's recommendations should not be adopted. Further evidence on the nature of the complaints and the state of the local economy is needed.